The Villains of the Egg Crisis: Cage-Free Laws or Corporate Greed?

A spike of avian influenza (commonly called bird flu) has been raging in the US since 2022, but the last three months have seen an escalation. The virus has infected or killed 168 million chickens in the US so far, and in the last three months, factory farms have killed more than 30 million chickens to prevent the spread of the disease.

The result is that egg prices have risen sharply. For the most part, it’s restaurants and grocery stores that are feeling the pinch, as they typically subsidize egg prices for consumers. Some restaurants, including chains like Waffle House, have started adding an egg surcharge; grocery stores including Trader Joe’s, Costco, and Whole Foods are placing limits on the amount of eggs a customer can purchase.

During his campaign last year, President Donald Trump blamed inflation under the Biden government for the rising price of eggs, and his Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins pledged to “immediately and comprehensively get a handle on animal disease outbreaks”. But political efforts are yet to make much difference for egg prices, which have risen 37 percent since last year.

That hasn’t stopped some states from pursuing a new avenue to make eggs affordable: suspending cage-free laws.

Cage-free laws: symptom or scapegoat?

In February 2025, Nevada Governor Joe Lombardo signed a law into effect allowing the state to temporarily suspend all egg sale regulations, including its previous 2021 law requiring retailers to sell cage-free eggs. The aim is to reduce prices and mitigate the supply chain distribution caused by the flu by allowing consumers and retailers to access eggs from a larger resource pool: only 121 million of the 304 million chickens laying eggs in the US are raised on cage-free farms.

Michigan state Rep. Jerry Neyer, a dairy farmer and chair of the state House Agriculture Committee, said it was a “misconception” that cage-free laws are driving up the price of eggs. He also pointed out that thousands of farms have already adapted their farms to become cage-free, investing time and billions of dollars that won’t be easily rolled back.

Industry insiders agree with him. "The need to roll back this legislation is just not necessary whatsoever,” said Bill Scebbi, Executive Director of the Colorado Egg Producers Association. “It would actually harm our farmers here in the State of Colorado, and it would jeopardize the investments they've already made.”

And outside of the industry, other state legislatures and governors have also pushed back against the idea of repealing cage-free laws and regulations. A repeal bill died in Colorado in January 2025; the Governor of Oregon rejected grocers’ pleas to suspend the law; and Michigan’s legislature has declined to advance a repeal bill.

Finally, the production cost differential is not going to make any massive difference. The Coalition for a Sustainable Egg Supply’s research revealed that producing cage-free eggs costs about 24 cents more per dozen: that’s just two cents per egg, not enough to reverse prices for grocery stores and restaurants that have gone from 2.25 per dozen eggs last fall to around 7 today.

With all this in mind, it’s clear that revoking cage-free laws and rolling back the progress that animal welfare advocates have made in ensuring farms treat chickens with dignity will not do much to affect egg shortages or price spikes. There is one thing it will do, though: It will make life miserable again for the millions of chickens caught up in the abusive machinery of battery cage farms.

Cage-free laws are there for a reason. Chickens living in battery cages are unable to engage in their normal behaviors, like roosting, perching, pecking, or even fully stretching out their wings. Unsurprisingly, they suffer from psychological distress as a result. Their bodies suffer too: foot disorders from the wire mesh cage floors are common, as is osteoporosis—which leads to weak bones and fractures at depopulation. This is only a tiny portion of the suffering factory farms inflict on chickens. For most chickens, life in battery cages is more like a nightmare.

From an ethical perspective, it seems obvious that forcing animals to live in these conditions isn’t worth it for cheaper eggs. But it’s definitely not worth it for a minute or non-existent change in egg prices, which are being driven up by other factors.

The real victims of the egg crisis

Cost of living is a concerning issue for millions of Americans, and it’s troubling to watch businesses struggle with the sharp rise in egg prices. But luckily, humans don’t need eggs to survive—we have other sources of proteins and nutrients. Yet in the ongoing challenge the avian flu poses to our food systems, it’s all too easy to lose track of those who are truly suffering: the chickens.

As of February 2025, 166 million chickens had died from the avian flu in the US; globally, the number is something more like 500 million. Not all of these chickens are dying from the flu—instead, many farms in an effort are culling chicken flocks en masse in an effort to curb the virus.

The virus is a cruel death. It is lethal for up to 90 to 100% of birds, with symptoms including swollen heads, twisted necks, breathing difficulties, body swelling, and dragging legs, before the birds finally lose consciousness, usually dying within a day or two. But the methods with which factory farms preemptively kill chickens and other birds exposed to the avian flu are just as cruel. Sometimes farms spray water-based firefighting foam over chickens, effectively suffocating them to death. Other times farms slowly poison chickens by locking them up and piping carbon dioxide into their enclosures. Another, especially inhumane option is ventilation shutdown plus (VSD+), wherein farms shut off air and pump heat into an enclosure filled with thousands of chickens, who may take hours to die in these brutal and distressing conditions.

These measures are recommended by the US Department of Agriculture and the American Veterinary Association. But even these bodies acknowledge that these techniques “may not guarantee that the deaths the animals face are painless and distress free.” And the tragic result is that lost amongst the conversations about egg prices, avian flu measures, and political punch-ups of who’s to blame and how to fix it, millions of chickens are dying in the cruellest of circumstances.

Who’s really profiting from the egg crisis?

Avian influenza has hit our food systems hard. Chickens, trapped in a cycle of disease, are not doing well. Customers, searching for scarce or unaffordable eggs, are not doing well. But in the midst of the crisis, some people are doing very well indeed: the corporate greed of a certain egg producer.

In December 2024, Cal-Maine Foods, the country’s largest egg producers, saw its stock soar to an all-time high of 102.55](https://www.investing.com/news/company-news/calmaine-foods-stock-soars-to-alltime-high-of-10255-93CH-3764271). Cal-Maine [controls 20% of the egg market](https://www.reuters.com/markets/us/surging-egg-prices-send-cal-maines-profit-shares-higher-2023-03-28/) in the US and in 2023, its net profit was [758 million, which was 471% higher than 2022. But in that same year, from 2022 to 2023, Cal-Maine only increased the number of eggs they sold by 5.9%, which means that at least some of those profits could be accounted for by price hikes.

You don’t increase your profits by 471% simply by raising prices according to resource scarcity. What Cal-Maine Foods and other heavyweight producers like them seem to be doing is effectively corporate profiteering: they’ve spotted a market opportunity and they’re exploiting it at the cost of retailers, restaurants, and individual consumers. As such, the Department of Justice is currently investigating Cal-Maine on allegations of price gouging.

That makes it all the more frustrating that some legislators are turning their attention to cage-free legislation as an alternative target to resolve the egg crisis. But it also feels symptomatic of typical patterns within our broken food system: targeting the massive corporate players inflicting such significant environmental, financial, and individual trauma upon people, animals, and the planet is difficult. They have the resources and influence to fight back, and an eye for profit is a powerful motivator.

But we’re not going back

Despite the efforts of corporate giants like Cal-Maine Foods, the times they are a-changing. Consumer advocacy and pressure has led many corporations to commit to cage-free eggs. Some of the largest food corporations in the US, including McDonald’s, Burger King, Nestle, and Hormel Foods are already fully cage-free. These corporations have made their commitment to cage-free eggs independent of any legislation, and rolling back state legislation protecting chickens won’t stop them from continuing to source from cage-free producers.

Outside of corporate choices, animal welfare advocates across the US are spreading awareness about the cruelty facing chickens and other animals caught in the factory farm system. At The Humane League, we’re putting pressure on corporations that continue to use eggs from caged hens and working to pass and defend legislation that protects animals, like the cage-free laws. Public concerns about animal welfare are rooted in ethics and wanting to build a happier, healthier planet for all of us; they won’t be diminished by scapegoats and grumbling about price rises.